camera

As we had been expecting, OPPO has released the N1 smartphone for those in the US and Europe. The handset is available in white and there is an option for either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage space. The OPPO N1 is priced at $599 (16GB) or $649 (32GB) and sporting the key features touted by OPPO including the rotating 13 megapixel camera, O-Touch Panel and O-Click Control fob.

While Google Glass has been expanding into the hands of more and more people lately, we cannot help but keep an eye on the development side. After all, in theory, the more developers create before Glass is readily available to the public, the more attractive they will be to the average user. One developer, Paul O'Brien from MoDaCo has recently released an app that should appeal to those taking lots of pictures.

Just after being released to the world, Polaroid’s Android camera is being pulled form shelves. The mirrorless shooter, which Nikon says violates patents they hold, will no longer be offered to consumers. In an agreement between Nikon and the camera’s manufacturer Sakar, they will “no longer manufacture, import, advertise, promote, offer for sale, sell, or ship the Polaroid iM1836 digital camera in its present configuration.”

Instead of taking a few days as expected, Google has immediately made available its promised Android 4.4.1 update to the Nexus 5. And instead of just being some generic maintenance release, this latest update to the Android 4.4 release fixes one of the most prevalent concerns about the smartphone's inadequacy in the photography department.

While the Nexus 5 seems to have stepped up a bit in terms of the camera, things were not quite as perfect as many had been hoping for. Overall the handset is able to take some decent pictures, but there are frequent complaints about the shutter speed. We have been playing with third-party camera apps and have seen some improvement there, but it appears as if Google is getting ready to push out a fix.

VSCO Cam was confirmed as coming to Android way back in July. And just yesterday the follow-up news arrived -- VSCO Cam was going to be available in the Google Play Store as of today, December 3rd. Well, the app arrived on-time and as expected in terms of features, so we moved forward with a download and began playing. Read on for some thoughts after a few hours spent playing with the latest Android camera app.

VSCO Cam was confirmed as coming to Android way back in July, but it wasn't until yesterday that we learned a specific launch date. As those who have been waiting will likely remember, that release date was set for today, December 3rd. And well, a quick check of the Play Store shows the VSCO Cam app as being available and ready for download.

While much of the OPPO talk has included the N1 and CyanogenMod lately, it appears as if the company has just introduced another smartphone. This latest is the OPPO R1, which similar to the N1, brings a focus on photography. In this case, OPPO is touting the R1 as being able to capture quality images in low-light settings.

VSCO Cam touts itself as being "the standard of mobile photography" and as of tomorrow, Android users will be able to put that to the test. The app had long been available only for iOS, though, the team behind the app did confirm an Android app was in the works. That confirmation came several months back, but again, the app is expected to arrive in the Play Store as of tomorrow, December 3rd.

Optical Image Stabilization is the new trend for smartphone cameras, but Samsung may be bucking the trend. A report by ET Times suggests that Samsung will continue to fight the megapixel battle, rather than improve on the hardware itself. If the report is correct, we may end up seeing 16MP and 20MP cameras in their devices, starting early in 2014.